


Forgotten Things

by WizardSandwich



Series: A Past Long Gone [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: M/M, Reunions, no editing i die like a fucking idiot, there are some vague ass exodus elements in there so take them as they are, you ever get amnesia but you're also gay? that's orion rn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 03:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21439351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WizardSandwich/pseuds/WizardSandwich
Summary: Orion knows this mech.
Relationships: Optimus Prime/Original Character(s), Orion Pax/Original Character(s)
Series: A Past Long Gone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545622
Kudos: 9





	Forgotten Things

**Author's Note:**

> pax is a bastard oc i'm sorry if it gets confusing i guess

Orion doesn’t understand why Pax looks at him with sad optics. Or why his servos brush across Orion’s plating so softly—_so tenderly_—that it seems like he knows every line of Orion’s frame. Orion doesn’t even know the lines of his new frame.

So who is this Pax? Why is he so familiar?

Why does he make Orion’s spark turn and tumble?

“Who is he? Do I know him?” he eventually asks Megatronus—_Megatron_. His voice is low, like he’s asking something that shouldn’t be asked.

Megatron looks at him with those piercing optics—_and why do they unsettle him so? Leave him biting back unjustified sadness and the ache of cold anger_?—and his expression turns contemplative. There’s an edge of something else there. Something cold and calculating. Nothing like the passion that Orion knew. But war changes mechs, warriors most of all. And who is he to judge? He, he is merely a dataclerk, not even fit to serve a Prime.

War is so much different from the Grid and having energon with Jazz. It is a burning ache that sits just under his plating. Alpha Trion would tell him to do his job. So Orion does. It is not his place to question things like this—_it should be_. It is not his place to hinder Megatron’s quest for freedom.

So when Megatron says, “You must have heard of him on Cybertron. He was a painter then. Nowhere near Sunstreaker’s—” _Orion’s processor niggles at the new designation. It sends a tingle of familiarity down his struts. He knows_—“level, but he was good enough.”

“Yes,” Orion echoes, his voice somewhat far away even to his own audials, “I must have.”

Megatron nods like he’s accomplished something. “Orion, your break is almost over. I must go collect what Pax has brought with him and then give him his newest assignment. If you need anything, just speak to Soundwave.”

“Of course, Megatron—” Orion stops through the end of the designation and lets the “-us” hang heavy in the air.

Megatron gives him a kind—_cordial_—nod before making his way out the doorway.

“That went well,” one of the Vehicons says. It’s a vain attempt to lighten the mood. Even they can tell the heaviness that hangs in the air. It makes Orion sure he isn’t delusional. He isn’t looking for things that aren’t there.

“What is Megatron hiding from me?” Orion asks, looking toward the ceiling. He’s tired of this. Tired of the way Megatron does not say what he means. What ever happened to the young gladiator who was so blunt it hurt? Who tore until Orion bled? Was he lost to the tides of time? _Madness?_

“Lord Megatron would never hide anything from you, Orion, sir,” another Vehicon says. His voice is shaky with an unknown fear. Orion knows it not.

“Then who is Pax?” Orion plows on. It is an answer he is determined to get. It is as if when he does it will all click into place. “Why do I know him? Why does he know me?”

“You share a name,” the Vehicon says stubbornly. “That’s it. Do you know what you’re asking me?”

And suddenly Orion does. There is the oil slick feeling of _knowledge. _Orion is not the only one with something to lose here—_Megatron will not care about fairness._

“Why does Megatron trust Soundwave after all this time? I thought—Soundwave was not someone he was willing to trust, then,” Orion says instead.

“You’d best stop asking questions,” says a Vehicon with silver highlights. A leader among their kind.

Orion resists the urge to ask why. Why had led him to Megatron, but it does not give him his answers here. Megatron is long used to his game of why’s. He is too used to the way that Orion seeks answers like they are energon, even when he shouldn’t—_and why shouldn’t he? Megatron must have something to hide—_

“Yes, I will return to my work,” Orion agrees.

He turns back to his station and let’s his plating loosen in the illusion of relaxation. He has work to do. It cannot be put off to idle chatter. _He has something to find._

-

Pax hates being faced with Megatron wrath. It feels like a volcano is going to go off in his face. Megatron is a force of his own—someone who rivals even Starcutter in his brutality, in the casual way he hurts.

“What did you say to him?” Megatron practically growls.

“Who?” Pax asks, but knows not to play stupid. Playing stupid would only get him hurt. “Opt—Orion?”

It’s odd to trip over Optimus Prime’s designation. It hasn’t been Orion Pax for so long that Pax was finally getting used to it.

“Yes, _Orion_,” Megatron sneers. “Why is he suddenly asking about you?”

“I don’t know. I just gave him the datafiles that you told me to and I left. I haven’t spoken to him since.” Pax tells no lies. He knows that if he does he will not be alive for very long. Megatron has always been thorough about things like that.

“How do you know him?” Megatron’s voice is hard and leaves no room for escape.

It hits Pax then, then he knows that Orion and Pax know each other but he doesn’t know how. He does not know that they _know _each other. That Pax spent the beginning half of the war—before they left Cybertron—curling close to a big red frame. That Pax knows how Optimus Prime tastes after his morning energon but not if he sleeps alone on Earth.

“We’re acquaintances,” Pax says. And they are now. It is all they will ever be.

“That had better be the truth or I will rip you apart strut by strut,” Megatron threatens.

Pax smiles, tight but practiced, “Of course, sir. I would let you.”

Megatron straightens to his full height. Pax didn’t even realize that he was leaning down until he does. He looks somewhat placated at Pax’s easy agreement and that this is not turning into an interrogation of the messy kind.

“See to it that you speak to Orion. Tell him that you met once when you were visiting the Iacon Hall of Records for inspiration.”

“Of course,” Pax says again, ever an agreeable soldier.

He wants off-planet and soon.

-

“Hello, Orion,” Pax greets smoothly as he strides into Orion’s workspace.

The Vehicons straighten in his presence. They are right to be weary of him. He is Starcutter’s apprentice—Starcutters possession. It is only right of them to assume he has the same quick temper. The same drive to shoot and never ask questions.

“Pax, I did not expect you to return,” Orion greets, turning around.

Pax offers a polite smile, “I didn’t expect to come back either. But you know how things are.”

“Yes,” Orion says and those pretty optics are all too knowing, “I do.”

“Megatron says you asked about me?” Pax tilts his helm to the side, mimicking curiosity. He’s ready to bite this in the bud. The sooner he allays Orion’s fears, the sooner he can return to his ship, the sooner he can steal and backstab. The sooner he can just not care.

“I did.”

Orion’s voice is full of cautious curiosity. There’s something in it that reminds Pax of teaching a young Prime how to act like more than he is. There’s false confidence and bravado turning into laughter and—Pax tries not to think about it.

“We met when—” Pax cuts himself off.

He almost says, “—Starcutter was hired for infiltration.”

He only falters for a moment for landing on, “—uh, when I came looking for a specific model for an art project I was working on. It was an uncommon alt. mode. Some triple-changer’s wet dream. I needed to find a way to make it seem real to them. And when I was looking,_ I met you_.”

And maybe that last statement sounds a bit more breathless than it should. It’s steeped in a meaning that he hopes Orion doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want him to.

“And then you met me?” Orion asks.

Pax’s spark catches in his throat. His words are a sugarcoated lie, designed to make Orion think that Pax is a pre-war relic of his past that Orion can’t recall. His goal is to make himself seem as if he were unimportant to Orion. Like Pax did not hold him near and dear to his spark.

“And I met you,” Pax says again, softer this time. “You were so small, the first time I met you. We were the same height—” A lie. Pax only knows how small he was because Optimus showed him once. “—and maybe you were a bit taller than I was. It pissed me off that someone who shared part of my name existed. I immediately wanted to slag you.”

That last part is true. Pax wanted to punch Optimus Prime in the face. Especially after hearing all the comments about him naming himself after Prime. As if Pax would ever do that.

Orion’s voice is a quiet weight, “Were we friends?”

“We were friends,” Pax agrees and it sounds empty to even his own audials.

“I think I was in love with you then,” Orion admits.

Pax feels like his pedes have been swept out from under him. Orion—Optimus—has always been too blunt with Pax for his own good. It brings an ache to his chest. He hates it.

“That’s unfortunate,” Pax says like their isn’t sadness and hope pressing down on his spark chamber. “You must have grown to resent me for it.”

“I don’t think I did.” The disagreement is clear in Orion’s tone. For some reason, he does not think he ever hated Pax. Did he ever feel betrayed then? As Optimus? When Pax tried to stab him in the back? “I don’t see why I would.”

“Most mechs tend to resent the mech their pining for.”

“I do not think I am most mechs.” Orion’s smile is so gentle and kind that Pax wants to punch him.

“No,” Pax agrees. He cranes his neck to look Orion in the optics. “You never were, were you, lover?”

Orion looks like Pax has just confirmed a suspicion of his. It’s a horrible feeling.

“I’m not going to be here tomorrow. Don’t get used to me.” Pax doesn’t know who he’s trying to spare. Neither of them will come out unscathed, even from this.

“I hope to see you again,” Orion offers.

Pax turns on his heel and does not say a word when he leaves.


End file.
